Bluefield State didn’t flinch when the moment tightened in the CIAA Tournament.
The newest member of the CIAA leaned on grit, rebounding and late-game poise to defeat Claflin 70-68. It advances in the conference tournament to face Virginia State, the No. 1 seed out of the CIAA North.
But this Bluefield State run is about more than one game. It’s about how head coach Luke D’Alessio builds.
“They made a couple more plays than we did,” D’Alessio said of Claflin. “We just kept battling, battling. Our guys showed a lot of grit.”
The Big Blues were outshot from the field and trailed for much of the contest. Yet they dominated the glass 35-27, grabbed 15 offensive rebounds and turned those into 23 second-chance points. They committed just seven turnovers against a pressing team and generated 16 more shot attempts.
“You expect them being the pressing team that we would turn the ball over against them,” D’Alessio said. “But we only had seven turnovers.”
It wasn’t pretty. It was physical and deliberate.
Built From Within the CIAA
D’Alessio has made a career out of building programs.
He turned Bowie State into a championship force. He reset Fayetteville State in 2019-20, led the Broncos to their first CIAA title in 49 years in 2022, was named conference Coach of the Year, and won an NCAA Tournament game before his contract was not renewed.
Now he is doing it again — this time at Bluefield State, the CIAA’s most remote outpost in West Virginia. He’s doing it the way he always has: by recruiting from within the league.
This Bluefield State roster features transfers from Shaw University, Bowie State, Elizabeth City State, Virginia State, Virginia Union and Livingstone College — along with multiple players who followed him from Fayetteville State.
Count them up. That’s seven different CIAA programs represented on one roster. For D’Alessio, that’s intentional.
“Definitely the recruiting is my first choice of recruits are players within the CIAA conference,” he said. “You have the experience of what it takes to win in the regular season and what it takes to win in the CIAA tournament.”
He believes players who know the travel, the physicality and the crowds have an advantage.
“They’re used to this,” he said.
A New Look CIAA
This is what the modern CIAA looks like. Transfers move and coaches reset. Programs have to reload quickly.
Bluefield State is the league’s newest member, but its roster reads like a CIAA all-star reunion. Players who once competed against each other now share a locker room. And they play with an edge.
“We could be down 20, 60, 100,” D’Alessio said. “We’re going to keep fighting until the buzzer says zero.”
That fight carried Bluefield State past Claflin.
Now it carries them into a matchup with Virginia State, the North’s top seed, in a conference that D’Alessio knows intimately.
The league may look different. The address may be West Virginia, but the blueprint feels very familiar.
And in the CIAA, familiarity can be dangerous.